Behaviourist Learning Theory Directed Nursing Practice Nursing Essay

Behaviourist Learning Theory Directed Nursing Practice Nursing Essay According to professional standards of the College of Nursing of Ontario, the leadership expectation is not limited to nurses who are in formal leadership positions; all nurses, no matter of what kind the positions they are, have obligation to demonstrate leadership. Leadership requires knowledge to understand not only our own beliefs, values and behaviour affecting others, but also others beliefs, and values to build respect, trust, and integrity in a health care team. This course requires students choose a theoretical framework to guide developing a learning plan, and then applying the theory to a practice project for the purpose of expanding their perspective of nursing practice as an independent thinkers in the organizational or global level of hospital or community setting. My project report will review and analyze how behaviourist learning theory (BLT) directs my learning activities in clinical practice as an independent thinker to prepare myself in optimizing my future nursing practice. It includes two components: knowledge and application. The knowledge component will involve reviewing and comparing relevant content about the correlation between the generations of nursing workforce and choice of leadership style from five recent scholarly articles, identifying their strength and limitation, as well as guiding my nursing practice to achieve my learning goals. The application component includes how the acquired knowledge was utilized to guide my critical thinking process for figuring out the true reality of correlation in working setting between the generations of nursing workforce and choice of leadership style, as well as the challenges I have experienced. Knowledge Component BLT views learning as the product of the stimulant conditions and the response; its focus is mainly on what is directly observable. Behaviourist may closely observe responses and then manipulate the environment to triage more desired stimulus to bring the intended change (Bastable, 2008, p. 54). That is the inspiration I choose the stimulant conditions different choice of leadership style from different generation of nursing workforces in my questionnaire survey project, and the response my learning outcome from the project, as the core concept from BLT as literature research topic to acquire related knowledge and apply it to my project about the correlation between generational diversity and choice of leadership in my clinical placement setting. Literature Review / Five Relevant scholarly Articles In her article, Hahn (2009) clearly realized todays reality is that nursing workforce is made up of multigenerational staff. Nursing managers and their team members might hold different attitudes, beliefs, work ethics, and job expectations. The generation gap increases and creates more opportunities for misunderstanding and conflict. For both leaders and team members, the understanding generational differences would benefit in creating strength and opportunity or a source of stifling stress and conflict. How to deal with the challenge from the multigenerational diversity and develop a highly functioning and cohesive nursing team are current focuses for the nurse manager to be an effective leader. Although Hahn did not directly explain which leadership style would fit current workforce situation, the suggested strategies in her article for managers to effectively manage a multigenerational team indicate the transformational leadership to be the choice as an effective leader. Her argum ent was supported by previous researches done by Ulrich (2001), Zemke, Raines and Filipczak (2001). According to the research done by Cummings, MacGregor, Davey, Lee, Wong and Lo, et al (2010), some forms of leadership might be possible to lead to negative outcomes. They made their research from 10 electronic databases that include 53 published quantitative studies, then used content analysis to analyze these studies; 64 outcomes emerged from their analysis were classified into five categories: (1) work environment factors, (2) productivity and effectiveness, (3) staff relationships with work, (4) staff satisfaction with work, role and pay, and (5) staff health and wellbeing. Their research found the leadership styles that focused on people and relationships, such as transformational, resonant, supportive, and consideration, were reported in 24 studies, which were associated with higher nurse job satisfaction; whereas the leadership styles that focused on tasks, such as dissonant, instrumental and management by exception, were reported in 10 studies, which were associated with lowe r nurse job satisfaction. Therefore, they concluded that the leadership that focused on task completion alone is not sufficient to achieve optimum outcomes for the nursing workforce; transformational and relational leadership are needed to enhance nurse satisfaction, recruitment, retention, and healthy work environments, particularly in this current multigenerational workforce. Differently, Stanley (2008, 2010) argued that congruent leadership will be the one that can facilitate greater effectiveness when dealing with generational issues. Because this approach of leadership rests on the leaders values and beliefs that are demonstrated on leaders role modelling of their personal nursing / health care or organizational values; the actions of this leadership style are matched (or are congruent) with followers values and beliefs when dealing with multigenerational employees. Followers who have the same or similar values will support and follow these leaders because of their own values alignment. While realizing the difference of values and beliefs that are truly existed between the generational groups, Stanley emphasized that leaders core nursing / health care values are likely to offer significant common ground for this leadership approach to ensure it will be employed successfully. Kowalski, Bradley and Pappas research (2006) seems to be in a supportive posit ion to Stanleys argument. In her article, from the efficiency and positive outcome of management in a health care organization, Robbins and Davidhizar (2007) articulated there is a direct link between leadership style and staff retention, satisfaction and patient satisfaction. Currently, the changing faces in health care workforces pushes the management of nursing on the edge of the change in management strategy using effective and appropriate leadership to prompt greater success in gaining and maintaining staff satisfaction, staff retention, and then, in long run, improving patient satisfaction. Staff retention and satisfaction are the driving forces for achieving the patient satisfaction. Comparing with transactional leadership in leadership strategy, mission and vision, communication, relationship-building, they argued that transformational leadership is more effective in gaining and maintaining staff satisfaction, retention, and patient satisfaction in health care organizations. Poor leadership on a nursi ng unit leads to unhappy, unmotivated, and less dedicated staff. The underlying fundamental is that a transformational leader has the ability to effectively communicate the vision, mission, and empower nursing staff, which in turn build and promotes a healthy working environment for the entire team. Generally, Arsenault (2004) realized that todays workforce is more diverse than ever. There are many diverse issues. One of them is generational differences, which is created by a shared collective field of emotions, attitudes, preferences, and dispositions. Relatively, the differences in the unique attitudes, values, and beliefs of each generation determines how each generation views leadership, and ranks admired leadership characteristics, which correlates to their choice in leadership style and favourite leaders. He concluded that generational differences are a legitimate diversity issue that must be recognized and understood by organizations and needs to be addressed in developing current and future leaders. The leaders of organizations need to recognize and understand that a unique persona, which is developed from generational difference and already translated into a mind-set that demonstrated in different emotions, attitudes, beliefs, values, preferences, and embodied activitie s in working setting. Accordingly, this mind-set creates differences in leadership style how a person of a generation will lead or how they prefer to be led. In summary, five researches reached the common port, that is, the generational diversity is a current issue in workforce that organization and leaders must recognize and understand in designing effective and productive leadership strategy and style in creating a healthy working environment. However, for what is the correlation between generations and choice of leadership style, Stanley (2008, 2010)s articles reached his unique port; it argued the congruent leadership will be the one that can facilitate greater effectiveness when dealing with generational issues. The research done Cummings, MacGregor, Davey, Lee, Wong and Lo, et al (2010) clearly reached the conclusion that transformational and relational leadership styles will enhance nurse satisfaction, recruitment, retention, and healthy work environments in todays multigenerational workforce; because their research was based on extensive search of related database, so their conclusion derived from the evidence-based literature rev iew is highly credential and statistically significant. Also, Hahn (2009) and Robbins and Davidhizar (2007) generally articulated the nursing leaders should take transformational leadership as the core concept of their management, but their articles do not show strong evidence to support their argument. Arsenaults article emphasized the generational diversity of workforces and its impact on leadership, but he actually did not figure out which leadership could be the effective in current working environment. Summary of Behaviourist Learning Theory (BLT) According to Bastables book (2008, p.54-55), whether dealing with animals or people, BLT views the learning process as a relatively simple chain or cycle; the focus of BLT is mainly on the phenomenon that is directly observable stimulus conditions and the associations formed in the learning process; the learning process is understood as the product of the stimulus from the environment and the responses. In order to enhance the learning process leading to the desired result, behaviourists or learners can closely observe and manipulate the environment by utilizing operant conditioning techniques of positive or negative reinforcement (Skinner, 1974, 1989) to increase or decrease the stimulus, thus, to reinforce or decrease the responses to bring about the intended change. Plan of Implementation Based on my learning goal (see appendix A), I applied the acquired knowledge of BLT to my learning process through a survey project about the generational difference in the perceptive response in their admiring leadership style based on their different emotions, attitudes, beliefs, values, working ethics, preferences, and embodied activities in working setting. Each answer to the survey questionnaire is one of the stimuli for my learning process. What I learned form the project is the response of the learning process. I designed a survey questionnaire (see appendix B) about the correlation between generational difference and choice of leadership styles, randomly distributed to 55 staff in two medicine units of two hospitals, and 53 responses has been collected; the statistically valid representative sampling size is 96.36%. Statistical analysis on the response has been done (Table 1). Poster presentation (Appendix C) has been presented in my clinical placement unit for feedback. Application Component The Rationale of Choosing Behaviourist Learning Theory (BLT) BLT suggests the learning process is the product of the stimulus from the environment and the responses to the stimulus; it views the learning process as a reoccurring chain or cycle between stimulus and response through operant conditioning techniques of positively or negatively enhancing stimulus. Learning will occur while the stimulus is positively or negatively enhanced. Such a theoretic framework can be applied to health teaching process (Bastable, 2008, p. 54-60). The designation for students project from the course outline is about the learning from the project about a nursing issue in a global or organizational level of a hospital or community setting. Based on the acquired knowledge from BLT, my intention of my project design is to view the responses from the survey as stimulus for my learning about the choice on leadership style in a health care team staff would be either as a leader or a team member. Each response is one of the stimuli for my learning. More choice selecti vely occurred on one particular leadership style will become an enhanced stimulus for my learning that will give me the idea of which leadership is most admired in current health care team. In my future career, I would work as either a team member or a team leader; I have to prepare my self to be knowledgeable for these two roles. I am trying to apply BLT to my self teaching and self learning process. Actually, teaching and learning are the two phases of one process. Summary of the Process Involved in Applying BLT From the literature review, the generational difference in the perceptive response in their admiring leadership style based on their different emotions, attitudes, beliefs, values, working ethics, preferences, and embodied activities in working setting was found (Stanley, 2008, 2010; Arsenault, 2004; Weston, 2006; Kramer, 2010; Swearingen Liberman, 2004; Robbins and Davidhizar, 2007; Hahn, 2009; Cummings, MacGregor, Davey, Lee, Wong and Lo, et al, 2010). Based on this finding, my project designed a survey questionnaire to ask two questions: (1) what is your generation? (2) transactional or transformational leader: which one you would like to be or prefer? The answers to these two questions will give me two kinds of information: what is the content of current workforces and what kind of leadership style is admired more in the working setting. The answer for each respondent could be viewed as one of the stimuli for my response my learning result for my future choice of leadership in future career. 55 copies of questioner were randomly distributed to health care team of two medicine units of two hospitals, including nurses, social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, manager, nursing educators, and unit supervisors / coordinators, clinical instructor, and nursing students. 53 copies of responses have been collected. Data has been coded and statistically analysed. The percentage of each generation in the health care teams, and the percentage of selecting transactional or transformational leader from each generation, and from the total sampling were calculated. The finding demonstrates the transformational leadership style is admired most in current working setting. This finding has been supported from the literature review of this report above. Discussion of how Gained Knowledge was Integrated into Learning Process The major components of stimulus and response of BLT were used in my learning process. Before my project survey, I had qualitative idea about the generational difference in beliefs, values, employment expectation, working ethics and orientation, but no quantitative idea about such difference, and no idea about how much their difference was in choosing working sett leadership style. Through the survey, I get the idea about how much each generation constitutes the content of health care workforce in these two units: Veterans are retired, Baby Boomers is 19%, Generation X is 53%, and Generation Y is 28%; the generation X and Y already constitutes 81% of the workforces. Among 10 answers from Baby Boomers, 2 answers chose transactional leader (20% of the generation), 8 answers chose transformational leader (80% of the generation); among 28 answers from Generation X, 4 answers chose transactional leader (14.3% of the generation), 24 answers chose transformational leader (85.7% of the gener ation); among 15 answers from Generation Y, 1 answer chose transactional leader (6.7% of the generation), 14 answers chose transformational leader (93.3% of the generation). Among the total samplings, 86.8% of answers chose transformational leader, only 13.2% of answer chose transactional leader. The finding also shows a trend of the major choices from each generation on the leadership style: from Baby Boomers to Generation Y, the percentage of the responses decreases in choosing transactional leader, and percentage increases in choosing transformational leader. It clearly demonstrates the significant difference between generations in admiring leadership style based on their different emotions, attitudes, beliefs, preferences, and embodied activities in working setting. The information analysed and concluded from the survey is the wanted stimulus for my learning it gives me the idea which leadership style could be effective and productive in a health care working environment. The m ultiple kinds of information obtained from the survey like the enhanced stimulus positively manipulated by behaviourist to strengthen my response in advocating transformational leadership as the style I will choose to be my favourite one in working environment. Challenge Encountered and Related Management Because my project about learning process involves the questioner survey, the challenge comes from the design and implementation of the survey process. The first challenge is the survey of this project is not a formal and academic survey. It is an anonymous mock survey. It does not involve in any interesting conflict and retain any private information about responders name, exact age, and gender, etc. Its purpose is limited to get the true information about the leadership style choice from different generation in the real working setting for my personal clinical learning process. So, it was not submitted to university ethics committee to seek pre-approval. The management strategy is anonymous survey and keeping the survey result within the learning process of this course. The second challenge is the design of the questioner survey. As a student project, there is no funding for rewarding the participants. Staff are busying with daily assignment and dont have spare time and compassion to answer too complicated questioner. The management strategy is to simplify the questionnaire design as much as possible, but it is still remained in detail enough to collect enough information to meet my learning goal. The third challenge is the limitation of sampling size. As a student project, it is impossible to have adequate time and financial resource to take survey in multiple units of multiple health care facilities. The management strategy is to utilize the chance of my working unit at another hospital and clinical placement unit at St. Michaels hospital to take my survey so that the sampling process will be more statistically valid and the finding will be more statistically representative from the limited sampling size. Outcome of the Project and Evaluation The outcome of the project is the finding of my survey truly demonstrates the generational difference in choosing leadership style in real working environment, which is supported from the literature review. The outcome of the project also reached my learning goal of this project: it uncovers the reality of generational difference in choosing leadership style and future trend in real working environment; and the finding is strong enough as enhanced stimulus to my response in my learning process based on BLT. Evaluation Criteria of Self-Evaluation of Learning Plan and Planning Change In my learning plan, the criterion of self-evaluation for knowledge component was set up as: able to select a specific theoretical model of leadership style based on current nursing environment. To better reflecting the learning experience from the project, I will modify it as: able to select related scholarly publication and a particular theoretical framework of leadership style based on current nursing working environment for literature review to acquire knowledge in guiding my learning process and practice project. For application component, the criterion of self-evaluation was set up as: able to develop questionnaires of assessing staff nurses values, beliefs and expectation on their choice of leadership style. To better reflecting the learning experience from the project, I will modify it as: (1) able to develop questionnaires of assessing staff nurses values, beliefs and expectation on their choice of leadership style; and (2) able to analyze the survey result and figure out the significant finding. Personal Growth and Development Before this clinical placement, I did have general idea about the generational difference in emotions, attitudes, beliefs, values, preferences, and embodied activities in working setting. However, I did not have clear idea about the generational difference in choosing leadership style in real working environment. Through applying BLT to assess staffs values, beliefs, expectation, attitude about the employment and work-life quality, and expectation of each generation on their choice of leadership style within the multiple generational cohorts, I found (1) current health care workforces is a three generation cohort, not a four generation cohort that was articulated in most of previous literatures, because Veteran generation is retired already; (2) from Baby Boomers to generation X and Y, the percentage of staff who choose transactional leadership style is linearly decreasing, the percentage of staff who choose transformational leadership style is linearly increasing; (3) presently, gen eration X is the majority in health care workforce, and generation Y is in the second place; in these two generations, the percentage of staff who chose transformational leadership style is 86% and 93%, which releases a clear information that transformational leadership style will work better for them. Totally, the outcome of the project tells me that in my future career, either as a team member or a team leader, transformational leadership was the style I should choose to work comparatively in a team or lead a team effectively. Conclusion According to the learning objective and teaching strategy of this course, a learning plan and practice project plan were developed based on the chosen theoretic framework. The project of survey was implemented in two medicine units of two hospitals. The survey result was statistically analysed and poster presentation was presented in the clinical placement unit. This report summarizes the acquired knowledge through the reviewing of five scholarly articles and the chosen theoretic framework, discussed the rationale on theoretic framework choosing, and the major concepts of BLT stimulus and response, which have been applied in my learning process. Also, the outcome of the project, experienced challenges, possible personal growth and development obtained from the project are discussed.

Essay --

Knowledge has always been a parameter through which human progress has been measured, Knowledge could be an aspect gained from a fact or a situation present. The production of knowledge relies on different ways of knowing, sense perception, emotion, reason and language. The production of knowledge differs from each human being leading to acquiring of personal knowledge and contributing to the shared knowledge. Society also plays a role in influencing the production of knowledge through various judgments that it passes on the manner in which knowledge is produced. Ethics is a set of principles which are morally right and are used to govern people’s actions and on the basis of that judgments are passed, rules made and norms are established. This leads us to the issue : to what extent does compromising ethical judgement lead to useful knowledge in natural science and arts. Experiments in certain disciplines are considered ethically wrong. Theses ethical judgements gets translated into legal judgements and ban experiments in that field.This to some extent hampers the application and usage of knowledge in that particular field for example- In my biology class, I have learnt about steroids- anabolic steroids which stimulate the testosterone hormone used to enhance athletes’ performance and stamina. However such usage gives athletes an unfair advantage, and it is for this reason sport regulating bodies ban anabolic steroid usage by athletes and deem experiments that use the study of steroids on athletic performance unethical. In this manner while the usage of knowledge is being discouraged the experiments that study the use of steroids still continue. From another perspective, it may be argued that ethical judgment does not complet... ...ns to produce knowledge rather than scientist. The reason being is that there is greater danger on human life and safety being affected by methods used in the production of knowledge in natural science. Although Artist can strongly effect the mental state of health of society and can affect lives this way and this may sometimes have a greater impact on humans. Novels, propoganda , movies have known to cause strong disturbances between societies. However the limitation of production of knowledge in arts tend to be within national boundaries or even different regions of the same country while as limitation of production of knowledge in Science seems to have a more universal approach. We should accept ethical judgement as taking caution in the methods available for production of knowledge so that safety and health is not compromised and moral judgements not crossed.

Byzantine Art Essay

There are many differences and similarities between the following two pieces of art; the Toreador Fresco and the Egyptian Fowling Scene. The Toreador Fresco is a fresco depicting a bull-leaping ceremony. It is from the palace at Knossos(Crete), Greece and from around 1450-1400 BCE. The Egyptian Fowling Scene is a mural painting from the tomb of Nebamun. It is from Thebes, Egypt and from the 18th Dynasty, ca. 1400-1350 BCE. The styles between these two periods are very different, but there are still a few similarities found between the two pieces of art. The Toreador Fresco depicts a bull in the center, and a man leaping over its back. There is a woman on each side of the bull. Unlike the Fowling Scene, this fresco includes a border. In the Egyptian Fowling Scene, Nebamun is standing in his boat, flushing birds from a papyrus swamp. He is holding his throwing stick in one hand and three birds in the other hand. He is accompanied by his wife and daughter who are both shown holding lotus flowers. In the Toreador Fresco, the bull is the central figure of the painting while in the Fowling Scene every space was filled with lively details such as lotus flowers and butterflies. As for the depiction of the human figure, in the Toreador Fresco, the human figures have stylized shapes with pinched waists and they are highly animated. Also, in order to distinguish between male and female, the artist painted the young women with fair skin and the man with dark skin. This was a widely accepted ancient Minoan convention. This is very different from the depiction of human figures in the Fowling Scene. The skin color of Nebamun, his daughter and his wife are all the same dark color. The artist scaled down their figures in proportion to their rank. The wife and daughter were much smaller than Nebamun. Also, in the Fowling Scene, the animals show a naturalism based on careful observation. One similarity between the paintings was that the human figures were painted with the profile pose with the full-view eye. Another similarity between the two paintings would be that they both represent rituals and traditions. The Toreador Fresco depicts the Minoan ceremony of bull-leaping while the Fowling Scene is a tomb painting showing that Nebamun is enjoying himself in the afterlife. Another difference would be that in the Toreador Fresco, the artist used curved lines to suggest the elasticity of the living and moving beings unlike the Fowling Scene where the depiction of movement was not represented very well. In the Toreador Fresco, the artist also elongated the animal’s shape to show the powerful charge of the bull and used sweeping lines to form a funnel of energy. It is easily seen how the depiction of movement is better represented in the Toreador Fresco than in the Fowling Scene. In the Fowling Scene, the artist used many different and lively colors whereas in the Toreador Fresco, there is not a great variety of colors used. In the Toreador Fresco, you can tell that it is Minoan art by the elegance of the Cretan figures, with their long, curly hair and proud and self-confident bearing. This distinguishes them from all other early figures styles. You can also see a few cultural differences between the two periods just by comparing the two paintings. The human figures in the paintings are all dressed much differently. Also, in ancient Egypt, the artists often used hierarchal scale in their paintings. They would make the size of the human figures larger based on their social status. That is why in the Fowling Scene, the wife and the daughter of Nebamun are much smaller than him. Whereas, in the Toreador Fresco, you do not see a hierarchal scale, the human figures are all the same size. In conclusion, there are many differences and similarities between the Toreador Fresco and the Fowling Scene. Both paintings represent rituals and traditions. Also, they both have figures painted with the profile pose. In the Toreador Fresco, it includes a border and the bull is the central figure. The human figures are wasp-waisted, and highly animated. The depiction of movement is much better represented in this piece of art than the Fowling Scene because the artist used curved lines to emphasize the movement of the figures. He also elongated the bull’s shape to show the powerful charge of the animal and used sweeping lines to form a funnel of energy. In comparison, in the Fowling Scene, the artists filled every space with lively details. The marsh is full of lotus flowers and butterflies. Although the depiction of movement is not shown as well as the Toreador Fresco, a variety of lively colors is shown in the painting. Unlike the Toreador Fresco, the hierarchal scale is shown in the Fowling Scene.

Essay on Two Brands of Nihilism - 1537 Words

Two Brands of Nihilism As philosopher and poet Nietzsches work is not easily conformable to the traditional schools of thought within philosophy. However, an unmistakable concern with the role of religion and values penetrates much of his work. Contrary to the tradition before him, Nietzsche launches vicious diatribes against Christianity and the dualistic philosophies he finds essentially life denying. Despite his early tutelage under the influence of Schopenhauers philosophy, Nietzsche later philosophy indicates a refusal to cast existence as embroiled in pessimism but, instead, as that which should be affirmed, even in the face of bad fortune. This essay will study in further detail Nietzsche view of Schopenhauer and†¦show more content†¦Good and evil are not the approbation or prohibition against certain actions, rather, such doctrine codifies self hatred and begs the rejection of â€Å"human nature†. Christianity goes beyond a denial of just the flesh and blood of the body to do away with the whole of the world. In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche suggests in several places, that the world is falsified when dictated by the tenets of dualistic philosophies, with emphasis on Christianity. How the â€Å"True World† Finally Became Fable, a section in Twilight of the Idols, is subtitled â€Å"The History of an Error†, for it supposes to give a short rendering of how the â€Å"true world† is lost in the histories of disfiguring philosophies that posit otherworldly dualistic metaphysics. First, Platos vision of the realm of forms. â€Å"The true world - attainable for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , a feasible world, achievable through piety and wisdom. A world a man may come to know, at least possible for the contemplative and diligent student.In this early imagining the world is not entirely lost yet, it is however, removed from the â€Å"concrete† world. 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